“Aa jao,” she said through the door after I’d knocked softly. I entered. When she saw it was me, she leapt from the bed, crossed the room, and locked the door. “Are you mad, Danny?” she whispered. “I told you not to come here. You’ll ruin everything.”

I said nothing. Handed her Chhotu’s note instead. She read it then crumpled it.

“Destroying the letter’s not going to make this go away,” I said.

She looked up at me, her deep brown eyes betraying her usual cool. She was worried. “He must have seen me leave your room. I should have expected that swine was spying.”

“What can we do?” I asked. “Pay him?”

“No. He’ll want lakhs at the very least. You don’t have that kind of money. And he’ll only come back for more later.”

We stood by the door for a long moment, both searching for ideas. At length, she fetched a matchbox from the bedside table and burned the letter in an ashtray.

“I know this doesn’t fix our problem,” she said as we watched the flame consume the paper, leaving a wad of black cinders. “But we can’t risk Willy finding this either.”

She crushed what was left of Chhotu’s blackmail note into a fine ash with her thumb.

“We have some time,” she said. “Let me think about this. You go, and I’ll join you for breakfast at ten thirty.”

She kissed me long and deep, then stroked my cheek. I made for the door, but she called me back. “I’ve blackened your face,” she said, wiping away the smudge she’d left on my skin with the ashes from her thumb. Satisfied I was clean, she peeked out the door to be sure no one was near. “Go,” she said, waving me past her.

MONDAY, JULY 14, 1975, 3:48 P.M.

“We’re going to North Main Road for some coffee,” Sushmita said to Willy. “Will you come with us?”

He emerged from his study, placed his palms against the small of his back, and pushed, grimacing as he stretched. “Thank you, Mita, but no. I have some accounting to finish. You two go. Enjoy yourselves.”

“We’ll bring you back a gift,” she said, and we were off.

Strolling through the lane, we maintained a respectable distance between us. She was a familiar figure in the area, and word could easily get back to Willy if she were seen holding hands with a strange gora. That kind of thing was frowned upon in India anyway. Even when it was Indian couples.

“Sush, I’ve been meaning to ask you if Pooja managed to get the grease out of my slacks.”

“Sorry, no. She threw them in the dustbin. Why?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I was just wondering if I left some money in the pocket.”

I didn’t want to tell her, or anyone, for that matter, about the film.